Violin maker Kitty Smith – toning up

This photograph from the 1940s shows violin maker Kitty Smith (1912-2005) checking the back of a violin. Kitty said:

The back of a violin is shaped so that it has about five different thicknesses – a variation of 1/64th of an inch (about half a millimetre) can alter the tone”.

Kitty was the daughter of Arthur Edward Smith MBE (1880-1976). A E Smith & Co was the leading violin house in Australia from the 1900s to the 1970s and every notable violinist who visited Australia called at the Smith’s shop for adjustment or repair of their precious instruments. Kitty served her apprenticeship and later worked with her father and had the opportunity to examine and repair the suburb instruments belonging to the leading soloists of the day such as Fritz Kreilser, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern.

This is one of a series of photographic prints given to the Museum when we purchased a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello) made by Kitty Smith.

Post by Lynne McNairn

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Tags: Australian makers, Kit Smith, Kitty Smith, Luthier, Violin making, violin workshop, Violins, women

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.